One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

• Dr. Hrabowski discusses his experiences in the Civil Rights movement on the Kojo Nnamdi Show
• Amy Hurst, information systems, studied assistive technologies in the maker community and created tools to help the public make useful objects.
• Maryland Unites: UMBC Community Service Leave
• Justin Vélez-Hagan, School of Public Policy, Weighs in on Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Crisis
• Erickson School and Sociology and Anthropology Featured in the Baltimore Sun for Work with St. Agnes Hospital
• UMBC’s student conduct referral rate is mentioned in an article about the University of Maryland, College Park’s on-campus drug violations.
• Greg Simmons, institutional advancement, discusses UMBC’s successful fundraising efforts, which are expected to double the university’s goal for the year.
• Clifford Murphy, American studies, is the new director of folk and traditional arts for the National Endowment for the Arts.
• Chris Corbett, English, recounts the actions of Baltimore police and political leaders in the months after Freddie Gray’s death.

Read more at UMBC Insights!

On July 30, a longtime music and arts space in Station North closed its doors permanently. The Hour Haus served as a music practice facility and performance venue for 25 years. American studies student Adam Droneburg produced an hour-long audio documentary which recently aired on WYPR’s The Signal. Dan Goodrich, an interdisciplinary studies major, collaborated with Droneburg on the project and provided photography.

The two students took an American studies course in the spring, “Community in America,” which focused on oral history/audio/mapping work in Station North. The class was funded by a Hrabowski Innovation Grant. Droneburg and Goodrich continued working in Station North over the summer after the class ended. Below is a description on WYPR’s website about the documentary:

“At midnight on Thursday, July 30th, 2015, the final amps and drum kits were reluctantly lugged out of Station North’s longtime music rehearsal space, The Hour Haus. After 25 years as a music practice facility and performance venue, the building is being converted to office space. Audio producer Adam Droneburg and photographer Dan Goodrich spent the past few months chronicling the end of the Hour Haus era, collecting interviews and portraits of the building’s final musical residents.  Today, with a stroke of the clock and the change of a lock, their documentary work has become instant history.”

Listen to “The Last Days of the Hour Haus” on WYPR’s The Signal.

Mathematics Professor and New York Times Contributing Opinion Writer Manil Suri recently published his latest op-ed about abortion politics and legislation in India. In his column, Suri reacted to an amendment proposed last year by the Indian government that would allow abortions to be performed by specially trained registered nurses and licensed practitioners of traditional and alternative medicine systems. Suri analyzed the ongoing debate in India over the proposal, stating that “the real root of the tension is the government’s promotion of alternative medicine as a medically equivalent but cheaper alternative to allopathic (modern) medicine.”

Providing further context, Suri explained that, “There are legitimate concerns against giving equal status to Ayush and allopathic medicine. Although Ayush treatments can be effective in managing chronic conditions, very few are backed by scientifically rigorous evidence…Nevertheless, Ayush doctors provide invaluable services in rural and impoverished urban areas, where allopathic doctors are reluctant to practice. A long-term government goal, consistent with recommendations from the World Health Organization, is to integrate the two systems. This presents ethical and logistical challenges, so progress can be expected to be slow and marked by bouts of friction.”

Read “India’s Inverted Abortion Politics” in The New York Times.

Qwickly is new tool deployed to faculty in Blackboard during the summer. It was designed to dramatically simplify the workflow of common tasks frequently performed by faculty.

One great example is the Make Course Available Tool. Consider the current multi-step workflow to make a course available in Blackboard: 

1. Go into the course
2. Open the Control Panel
3. Expand the Properties menu
4. Change the value of Make Course Available to Yes
5. Submit the form
6. Repeat for each course